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Monday, May 6, 2013

Failed gun control bill should have passed

April 17, 2013. The day that
America decided that political differences were more important than the safety
of the citizens the country consists of. On April 17, the Democratically-proposed
Manchin-Toomey Bill was voted on in the senate…with unsuccessful results. Many
people misunderstood the concept of the bill, thinking that its purpose was to
begin the gradual eradication of guns in America. But, in actuality, it focused
more on universal background checks when purchasing a gun, which really has no
downsides unless you happen to be a criminal. But, as usual, this Manchin-Toomey
was proposed by Democrats and it’s pretty common knowledge amongst everyone
that Democrats and Republicans don’t really care about anything that doesn’t
benefit their own political party. Since the Manchin-Toomey Bill showed the
first signs of gun control (a Democratic idea), Republicans were of course
against it and nobody benefitted from what should have been viewed as a
ridiculously reasonable bill.

I want
to stress that when people are dying, politics shouldn’t matter. Everyone should be able to momentarily put aside
their political affiliation in hopes to make America a safer and better country
for current and future citizens. Since 1999, there have been 31 school
shootings which is already a shocking number before you realize that’s only school shootings. After each major
shooting such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, or, most recently, Sandy Hook there
has been a call for reform concerning fire arms. But it’s simply never
happened. The Manchin-Toomey Bill was the first step and a baby step at that; a
simple bill that made the process of getting guns slightly more intelligent
than it had been previously. So why didn’t it pass if it wasn’t really that
radical? Mostly due to political turmoil and the idea that it could eventually
turn into complete gun law reform which is something that even some Democrats
don’t want. However, even if could result in something that members in both
parties don’t want to deal with, it still presented an extremely good idea on
how to decrease the amount of illegal firearms being purchased in the United
States.

Apparently
the main Republican argument against laws similar to the Manchin-Toomey Bill is
that criminals will break the law to find a way to get guns illegally even if
there is a law forbidding it. And this sounds slightly convincing until you recognize
that criminals break any law regardless of its focus. So if there’s no point in
making any gun-based laws, what’s the point in making any laws at all? Criminals
are just going to break them anyway, right?

Currently,
Senators Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin have expressed no immediate plans to bring
the Manchin-Toomey Bill to the Senate again. Nevertheless, there is much hope
that in the future there will be more support behind such a bill. Until then
it’s suggested that everyone who sees this as a reasonable bill educates those
who are unaware of what it’s actually trying to achieve.